This research investigates the social processes that lead to the use of alternative medicine to manage HIV disease. The specific aims of the proposed research are (1) to conduct a qualitative study of the social processes by which persons with HIV disease become users of different kinds of alternative medicine for the management of HIV disease (e.g., self care such as taking nutritional supplements or engaging in meditation, and formal care such as receiving care from an acupuncturist or herbalist), (2) to investigate how social networks, health beliefs and ideologies, stratification, (i.e., race, class and gender), and other socio-cultural characteristics influence decision making about using (and not using) alternative medicine, and (3) to increase our understanding of how persons with HIV disease use alternative medicine to meet their health needs by documenting their health practices, concerns, and experiences while using alternative medicine. Between sixty and eighty interviews will be conducted with persons with HIV disease. These data will be analyzed using accepted techniques for content and grounded theory analysis. The findings will help us understand and explain why people use alternative medicine, broader changes in health practices, as well as advance sociological understandings of illness behavior and the health seeking process.